Snapped: Women Who Murder - William Dennis

Episode Date: October 31, 2021

The horrific murder of a young mother on Halloween night sends California investigators on the hunt for a costumed killer.Season 26, Episode 9Originally aired: October 27, 2019Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WsLCJWqmIebSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wonder East Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. They were a happy family, and she was a vibrant young mother. And she smiled and laughed, you could not love an girl. She was the epitome of a good mother.

But tragedy would come calling one terrifying Halloween night. He was screaming and yelling, help my wife, help my wife. It was so gruesome in nature, who does this? To solve the crime, detectives must follow a trail of unnerving clues. To unveil a killer and a motive, unlike anything police have ever witnessed. You saw a man across the street wearing this wolf mask.

I think all of us were stunned. I didn't see any of this coming. This came out of a horror movie. San Jose, California, Halloween night 1984. In the close knit neighborhood of Berriessa, costumes children roam the streets, while grinning jackal lanterns glow on porch steps. Halloween was just, you know, a happy night for kids.

They could all dress up and go treat or treating. Beautiful thing, you know. But on this Halloween, the festivities take a disturbing turn when the local 911 dispatch receives a frantic call. It was around 9.30. There was a call of a possible stabbing at this location. The caller identifies himself as Charles Herbert.

Charles is hysterical, and he says that his wife, Doreen, is lying on the floor in a deep pool of blood, and she's eight months pregnant. First responders arrive on the scene moments later. There had to be an inch of blood all over the place. One of Doreen's arms was cut in an angle, and the forearm completely cut off. Numerous cuts in the abdomen,

and over 25 shots to the head. They saw Doreen's husband, Charles, 25 shots to the head. They saw Doreen's husband, Charles, covered with blood. He was speaking historically and almost non-sensitly. Like, it hear Charles screaming and yelling that helped my wife, helped my wife. I don't know what's going on. He was beside himself, absolutely beside himself, screaming and yelling my wife, my wife, my wife.

Doreen Ray Hitchens was born on November 29, 1952 in Santa Clara, California to a loving family. She had a good childhood. I know she did. She had sister and a brother childhood. I know she did. She had a sister and a brother also that are all so loving. Oh, she was an angel when she smiled and laughed you couldn't help but not loving her. She was always given. Dorine's kind and generous nature led her towards a career caring for others.

She like worked at a hospital. She was a physical therapist. She likes to volunteer at schools. She loves kids. Before meeting Charles, Doreen fell in love with a man named William Michael Dennis, who went by Michael. Michael was, was hard at hearing. He was deaf. He kept us to be tough with hearing aid. And, you know, in those days, it was a big thing in your pocket and a wire. He didn't interact a lot.

There was a big thing in your pocket and a wire. He didn't interact a lot. There was a lot of conversation. He didn't bother anybody. He was just a pretty mellow person. Michael, a factory worker, had been set up with Dorine through friends. The couple hit it off quickly.

He said, I feel great. I found the one. She is the one for me. I felt like this is going to be something that was going to have a good chance of working out. It was a short relationship. They only knew each other seven or eight months before they got married. And in April 1976, Doreen and Michael welcomed a baby boy, Paul Dennis, into the world. Mike really was a doting dad. Paul was the apple of his eye, your son that he loved so completely. Unfortunately, the strain of being new parents was too much for the young couple to bear,

and they divorced a year later. Michael moved out, while Dorine retained primary custody of Paul, who visited his dad on weekends. But Michael cherished every moment he spent with his boy. The custody arrangements allowed Mike to visit Paul, but not have him under his own custody. He did talk about wishing that he could spend more time with his son.

Not long after her divorce from Michael, Doreen met 28-year-old Charles Erbert, who owned a carpet shop. A flat tire brought them together. It covers the breakdown and just happened to pull over. We exchanged numbers and it took off from there. Even Charles and little Paul hit it off. Paul was a great, great son. He knew typical child.

He'd get in things, and I loved them. The following year, Dorine and Charles tied the knot. The couple had a baby girl of their own, Diana Erbert in November 1979. When Diana was born as a blessing, she loved Diana. But tragedy struck on February 17, 1980. Four-year-old Paul was at his mother's house when he fell into the family pool.

The boy had a fence up and was protected. I believed the dog dug a hole under the fence. And it was enough for him to get through. When baby Paul was pulled from the swimming pool, he was put on life support for a week. He was taken off life support and died three days later. Just sorrow for a long, long time. It's hard to explain to Philly, especially at child. There's no words for that.

There's no words for that. Paul's death was a devastating blow to the entire family, but his biological father, Mike, was inconsolable. The bond and love that he had for his son, that just tore him apart. That was his whole life. And losing his son, he lost part of himself. Although it was difficult, Mike, Dorine and Charles all tried to move on.

But Mike, still consumed by his grief, soon drifted out of their lives altogether. Then, four years later, Charles and Dorine learned they had a new baby boy on the way. It was pure joy. Everything was going fine. And we were really expecting, you know, in a month or so. The baby was due in early November 1984.

However, a horrific crime rocks the family on Halloween night when Charles finds Dorine bleeding profusely after a savage attack in their home. It's Singmiger's nightmare. Coming up, paramedics work frantically to save Dorine's life. It was so gruesome in nature. You know who tutas this? And investigators find a disturbing clue left behind by the attacker.

The right side is a mask. It's a wolf's mask. And it's just laying there. Hello, we're Night 1984. Families in the suburbs of San Jose, California are wrapping up a long night of trigger treating. When police and paramedics respond to a reported stabbing at the home of Doreen and Charles Erbert. The person who called it in, Charles, was saying that he was trying to put his wife back together. When paramedics arrived at her home,

she still had a pulse. When paramedics arrived at her home, she still had a pulse. While paramedics rushed Doreen to the hospital, officers detained her husband Charles for questioning. He was frantic, he was speaking historically and almost nonsensical. They were trying to get him in the police car because he would be the first natural suspect seeing his heart covered in blood. He was kicking the door of the police car. And that's when they said, get him out of here

and get him downtown. As Charles is driven away, officers make sure no one else is in the house. This is standard operating procedure to go and clear the house to make sure that we're not getting set up for an ambush, make sure nobody was hiding under beds and so on. Officers find a four-year-old girl hiding in the living room.

The little girl is Charles and Dorian's daughter, Diana. She was behind a couch. Police must handle this very delicately. You have a four-year-old child who most definitely has been traumatized. She would have to see a specialist, a psychiatrist, someone that she can talk to before they get a chance to find out what she may have witnessed. With the house now cleared, officers set up a perimeter, detectives arrive and try to make sense of the crime scene. With the house now cleared, officers set up a perimeter,

detectives arrive, and try to make sense of the crime scene. The front door is wide open, and you know, it had Halloween caricatures on it. And since the door was open, you could see inside. You could see that the hallway was red, and then there was a stool with a pumpkin on it. It was this lit jack-a-lantern sitting on a bar stool with this grin on its face, and it was the only light in the house with this candle in it, and it was completely, completely eerie, completely bizarre.

It's obvious to investigators that whoever attacked Dorene must have done it right inside the front door, suggesting she opened it to her assailant. Upon close inspection of the area, detectives realized the weapon used must have been a large, heavy object, possibly a machete. When you hit somebody with a machete or a knife, and you raise your arm back to strike again,

you actually send a spray of blood backwards. There was blood splattered everywhere, on the ceiling, on the walls, on the furniture. They found nicks on the ceiling, so someone lifting his arm up like that would actually hit the ceiling before he came down. On the floor by the front door, detectives find another haunting clue. Over in the right corner of the entranceway is a wolf mask. It's a mask. And I asked out what is this. They said, I know we found it there.

A mask of a caricature wolf with big teeth, big eyes, tongue hanging out. Had the mask been left by Dorine's attacker, officers tag the mask as evidence. Less than an hour later, they received devastating news from the hospital. The captain comes over to me and says that the victim at the hospital is dead, has been declared dead. So we got a homicide there. We got a homicide in the house. We got homicide in the house. Based off the viciousness of the attack, detectives conclude the crime must have been personal. You have to have a tremendous amount of rage, the type of people that we were looking at right away

on any homicide as somebody that's close to the family, somebody that's close to the victim. At that point, I was kind of convinced that we had the right guy in custody in the department, which was Doreen's husband, because he was covered in blood. At the San Jose Police Department, 33-year-old Charles Herbert is held

on suspicion of murder. It was unbelievable how they thought I could do it. I'm a culprit. Dev removed all my clothes and gave me this paper thing to wear. And then a policeman came in and said, your wife has died. And I asked the guy to hug me. And he said, I can't. And I was a lot worse than my hands and the blood.

He was sad. That my dad had to be locked up. Why she passed away. Charles denies being the killer, claiming he only found Dorine's body after returning home from the store. Halloween night, Dorine took the aunt of Pigger Treating, and then we also came out candy. And when she came back, she was getting late.

And there was no one coming to the door. So I went down to the store. He went to a store to get some of the drink and more candy and then stopped by a friend's house and then was going to make his way home. Charles says he arrived back home just after 9 p.m. The front door was unlocked and Doreen was lying in the entryway, covered in blood.

I tried pushing things back in, and she was still breathing harsh. He was trying to put his wife back together. Charles claims there was no sign of Dorine's attacker when he returned home. When asked by detectives, if he knows of anyone who might want to hurt his wife, Charles says he can't think of anyone. Still, the mass collected inside the Herbert home suggests that whoever killed Doreen

may have been concealing a familiar face. They spent much of that night interrogating Charles. They've decided to hold him longer. Back at the scene, investigators move on to the exterior of the house where they find something else the killer seems to have left behind. They found a trail of blood leaving their ebberts house. It went all the way down the street, but then it suddenly stopped.

Almost as if maybe someone went into a car and drove off. Police weren't sure what they were dealing with. Police wonder could the trail have come from the victim's blood dripping off the killer, or was it the killer's own blood from an injury sustained during the attack? In those days, we had to rely on blood-typing blood classification. Investigators collect samples of the blood with the hope they'll be able to compare the blood type to a suspect.

Next, police turned to the neighbors to see if anyone saw something suspicious that evening, or could offer insight into who could have committed this crime. I was going to Canvas the area to see if anyone had seen anything. I talked to several people in the block. Some were further into the cul-de-sac, so they didn't see anything. But one witness says he did notice something odd around 6.30 or 7 p.m.

He had seen somebody wearing a wolf mask. He noticed that there was a person standing across the street from the home, simply staring at the home. He was wearing a wolf mask. It's Halloween. That's not out of the realm of reasoning. But he did notice that the person was just standing there staring.

What seemed strange to this neighbor is that the person wearing the wolf mask didn't appear to be someone who was just enjoying the holiday with everyone else in the neighborhood. He seemed isolated, he stood there, he stared, not necessarily part of a party. Zad puts a man wearing a wolf mask and the wolf mask that I saw at the entryway together. Coming up, an unexpected tip leads police to the door of a new suspect. We knew somebody was there, somebody's trying to flush or wash away evidence. And later, detectives make an ominous discovery.

They find in the garage two handmade coffins. The hardest true crime story to report on is your own. I'm Tiffany Reese, host of the podcast, Something was Wrong. For 15 seasons, I've always aimed to validate and amplify the voices of those who have survived abuse and crime. But for season 16, I'm opening up for the first time about my own experiences as an abuse survivor and a murder co-victim. With the help of trusted friends, we'll unpack my journey to becoming a victim advocate by examining my past.

From the emotional and physical abuse I endured at the hands of my parents and the bullying I received from my classmates to the murder of my brother and the securities fraud My father was convicted of I'm covering it all and even learning more about myself through this process This is obviously a very personal journey for me But I believe that this will play a part in my healing helping me to process the trauma that I endured Follow something was wrong wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. It's Halloween night and San Jose police are desperately searching for a suspect in the brutal murder of 31-year-old Doreen Erbert. Investigators believe the killer was wearing a wolf mask when he attacked Doreen.

They found a mask of a caricature wolf with big teeth, big eyes, tongue hanging out, she must have answered the door, and there was a man and a wolf's mask who basically started slashing at her. I didn't know if there wasn't argument or not. I just know that he uploaded on her. I mean, it was a crime that seemed to just come out of a movie. And it was a crime that seemed to just come out of a movie. So far, police have one person of interest in custody, Dorin's husband, Charles Erbert.

While investigators continue to question Charles at the police station, another team of detectives interviews the couple's neighbors, hoping to uncover a clue that could shed light on the masked killer's identity, or a possible motive. Police were anxious to find the killer. Was it someone who knew the ewards? Or was it some just psychopath out there who had chosen Halloween to commit one of the most horrific murders

ever seen, not just in San Jose, but in the country. The neighbors can't think of any enemies of Dorine or Charles Herbert. But a few do mention that Dorine's relationship with her ex-husband, Michael Dennis, had recently turned south. They said she was married before, with a guy by the name of Michael Dennis. I had two addresses for this guy. And I told the captain, I'm gonna go to this address

and see if I can find this guy. Police head to Michael's residence, which is less than two miles away from the Erberts. When they arrive, it's still Halloween night, just a few hours after the crime was initially reported. I remember there's a truck on the driveway, and I just, with a flashlight, I look in, and we see blood on the steering wheel,

and on the key, and on the gear shift knob. Investigator's approach the front door cautiously and knock. No one answers. But in walking around to the side of the house, police find evidence that someone is home. We look up, and the life is on, and you can hear a water running. So we knew somebody was there.

And we all looked at each other. And the first thing I thought was everybody thought somebody's trying to flush or wash away evidence. Water shut off, another knock at the door, then the door opens, and it's wind-denous. He's wearing a robe with his hands in his pocket, and he says, yes, we're going to help you as well. We are here investigating the murder of your ex-wife, Irene, and he goes, oh, something like, oh, really?

Really? I go, yeah, that struck me as weird, because normally people are aghast in homicides. Oh, my God, you're kidding. Michael invites the detectives inside to discuss the case. He has a second surprising response when the investigators ask him if he'd be willing to let them search his home.

I said, would you mind signing a consent to search for him so we can look at the house? And he said, yeah, no problem, because I've got nothing to hide. And then as he goes to sign it, he cannot sign it with his right hand, because he's trapped in white bandages. There's blood on his bandages.

We all noticed it at that point. Now, I asked the guy what happened to your hand. And he goes, that he was twirling a knife up in the air, and that instead of grabbing it on the way down by the handle, he grabbed it by the blade and he caught himself. Michael eventually signs the warrant with his left hand and officers do a light search of the house. I didn't notice that to look like there

was some clothes that were bloody up in the bedroom. The investigators also find blood drops on the kitchen floor and on the grass outside the house. In the bathroom, they find bloody gauze. To detectives, the amount of blood on the scene is too much to have come from a hand simply cut by a slipped knife. I see all this gauze, all this blood, and I say you're under arrest for murder.

So I handcuffed him. After arresting Michael Dennis, police finally feel confident that they can release Dorine's husband, Charles Ervert. Upon arrival at police administration building with suspect Michael Dennis, I talked to my partner who told me that he didn't believe that Charles and had committed this crime. With Charles cleared of any role in Dorine's murder, detective said about trying to learn why

her ex-husband Michael, may have committed the crime. But Michael insists he's innocent and claims to have an alibi for the time period when the crime occurred. He tells him he's been home since 4 p.m. that he had dinner with his mother. Then he was passing out candy till 8.30. While Michael gives police a timeline,

an alibi, as to where he says he was, police don't absolve him of being suspicious, because they say no matter that timeline that he expressed to police, he still would have had enough time to get to the Herbert home, do his murderous dirty work, and get out of there before Charles arrived.

Despite their suspicions, police don't have any hard evidence connecting Michael to the crime, which means they can't hold him in custody for long. He goes to jail. You know, California, you can only hold for 48 hours. Eager to find a clue that directly ties Michael to the crime, police do another more thorough search of his home. Inside Michael Dennis's home in a closet, police find two important pieces of evidence.

One is a receipt from a hardware store and a label for a machete with an 18-inch blade. Detectives also search Michael's garage for the first time and make a chilling discovery. They find in the garage two handmade coffins. One casket was taller than the other, and one would have actually fit Doreen. What is this about? Why would they be in this garage?

It's an ominous discovery. Next to the coffins, police find more troubling evidence. They find two more than the others. Next to the coffins, police find more troubling evidence. They find two body bags, and they find weights, and they find a map of the San Francisco Bay. As disconcerting as the discovery may seem, none of it physically ties Michael Dennis to Dorine's murder. And 48 hours after his arrest, police are forced to release the suspected killer from custody.

Essentially, there was insufficient evidence to hold him longer. So they were forced to release him to let him go. Coming up, police desperately search for new clues as many fear the true killer may escape justice. This guy is out. He's a flight risk, and the risk of the family has scared to death.

And the key to solving the crime may hinge on the memory of its sole survivor. Remember her yelling? Get out of here, get out of here. And I have no idea how a little 4 or 5-year-old girl could lift you something like that. As police investigate the gruesome murder of Dorine Herbert and her unborn child on Halloween night, the community of San Jose is left reeling over the horrific attack.

The next day is when the brutality of the crime was revealed. I remember there was even a news conference by then San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who called it the Halloween horror. Forty-eight hours after he was arrested, Dorine's ex-husband, 34-year-old Michael Dennis, is released from police custody. Despite the lack of concrete evidence connecting him to the crime,

authorities still consider Dennis their prime suspect. When Michael Dennis walked out of the Santa Clara County jail, I remember vividly he had sort of a wild eye to look. He pushed to the waiting crowd of cameramen and reporters. Basically, say, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. In a final attempt to prove their case, police turned to Dorian's four-year-old daughter, Diana,

on the chance she can identify the man who attacked her mother. So far, Diana has been too traumatized to speak on the events of that evening. She just had to be calmed down a lot because of what she saw. I mean, I would be even now, I would be traumatized to see one of my parent, anyone, get slaughtered like that. Working with a child psychiatrist, Deanna is able to describe with important detail her memories from the night her mother was killed.

I don't remember trick or treating that night. I do remember sitting down with my mom and we were watching TV. And I remember my dad, St. E, he was going to go to the store. She was together with her mom when she heard a lot bang on the door. It didn't sound like a regular knock. It was a little more aggressive. The mother got up to go and through the door. And as soon as she opened the door, the massacre started. That's when she yelled for Deanna to run.

I don't remember hearing the screams. I just remember her yelling at him, get out, get out. And my mom told me to go hide. I hid right behind the couch. And after that, it kind of was a little blurry. Deanna doesn't recall getting a good look at the killer after his mask came off. But he seemed to know who she was. He was going through the house looking for her

and calling her name. And if he would have found her, he would have killed her, no two ways about it. And he didn't find her, and he left. That really wasn't sure if he was really gone or, you know, so I just stayed behind that couch. And I have no idea how a little four or five-year-old girl could have lived through something like that.

God kept me safe. He definitely kept me safe. While Diana's recollection is vivid, it's still not enough to prove Michael Dennis is the killer and investigators fear they are running out of time. This guy is out. He's a flight risk. And the rest of the family is scared to death. And that they might be next. Investigators do realize they need more evidence to bolster their case.

So they decide to look into Michael Dennis' private life. William Michael Dennis was trying to cope with some personal stresses in his life. Police learned that all of Michael's problems seemed to stem from the loss of his and Dorine's son four years earlier. Police found out the circumstances Dorine found her son in the family pool he had drowned. It was an accident, but her ex-husband never forgave her for that.

He was unattended, whoever Dorene was, she wasn't with Paul, obviously. Mike just said how angry he was. Investigators discover that Michael had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Dorine and Charles. He thinks it was their negligence that the son died. He thought his son was murdered. He believes in his heart that there was intention on her part. He thought in his mind about what Dorian's intentions were,

was she just trying to get rid of Paul. I think he kind of settled on that, that idea, that she really didn't care about him anymore. She had moved on to a new marriage, new kids, et cetera. And Paul was something of a burden to her. We thought immediately it was money, and then we discussed it, and it was trying to put a herd on us, trying to make us feel more guilty about what happened.

After two years of legal battles, a judge rules in favor of Dorine and Charles, declaring Paul's death an accident. I think losing the wrongful death suit, what he told me is basically that my son's life has zero value. He has zero value. And at that point, he was just like, OK, what am I going to do? Following the lawsuit,

Dorin and Charles had no more contact with Mike. Since it didn't go his direction, I thought it was all over. We would never see her here for long again. Then two years later, Dorin is savagely murdered. Police strongly believe Michael is the killer, but so far, they don't have enough evidence to prove it. That is, until the state crime lab finally identifies

the blood collected from the crime scene. He's got the same blood type as a murderer. This was before there was DNA testing, but they do find that his blood was colmingled with the ring's blood. On November 5, police arrest Michael Dennis on murder charges for the second time. As police and prosecutors continue to build their case,

the discovery of an address book in Michael's home leads to more evidence connecting him to the crime. I'm looking at this black book and it has names of four girls. So I go around calling and I talk to this girl and she goes, matter of fact, last year, we went to this party where dressed he was dressed as a big, bad wolf. Crossing my fingers, I said, did anybody take pictures by any chance? That he goes, oh yeah.

The guy took tons of pictures. Coming up, William Michael Dennis goes to trial, and the grim purpose of his handmade coffins is finally revealed. Anger does indeed metastasizer over time it doesn't go away, especially when it's something as tragic as this. On July 19, 1988, four years after his arrest, Michael Dennis goes to trial for the first degree murder of his ex-wife Dorian Herbert and the second degree murder of her unborn child. The prosecution lays before the jury a case of means, motive,

and opportunity for Michael Dennis. A man so traumatized over losing his son. A man enraged that he could not be properly compensated or get justice in a wrongful death suit. He was not succeeding in his life, and he could not get over the fact that his wife and his mind caused him to lose his son.

Prosecutors theorized Michael had stewed over his loss for four years while his ex-wife moved on with her life. Anga does indeed metastasize over time. It doesn't go away, especially when something is tragic as this. Prosecutors believe Michael Dennis came up with a diabolical plan for revenge.

Siting the evidence found in his garage, they lay forth the theory that Michael Dennis planned to kidnap and kill Doreen, her new husband Charles, and their young daughter, Diana, by drowning them in the San Francisco Bay. The evidence that found in the garage, the body bags, the coffins, the weight, the map of San Francisco Bay, was clearly indications that William Michael Dennis had been thinking all along about killing the

Erberts. The same way his son Paul died, drowning. His plan was to dump him in the bay, a San Mateo bridge. He built the coffins, and he's going to take us out and then carry us back to his cellar and put us in coffins. It's ridiculous. He's crazy. But prosecutors believe Michael never followed through with his plan because something had pushed him over the brink. And on Halloween night 1984, he decided to seek his revenge another way.

Now why did he decide to abandon an idea and instead put on a wolf's mask and get a machete? Could it be that he realized Halloween was coming around and he saw that wolf's mass and somehow, while they concocted this idea of revenge. Prosecutors suggest that perhaps it was the site of children trick-or-treating in his neighborhood that caused Michael to go over the edge nearly four years after his son's death.

I think trick-or-treaters came to his house. He saw his son running up to trick-or-treat, and everything came to a boil. And he started thinking about it. And he says, the hell with it, I'm gonna do it now. And he did. Losing his son, he lost part of himself, and he just snapped.

When it comes to presenting their case, Michael's defense attorney doesn't deny that his client committed the crime. Instead, he argues that Michael was mentally unhinged and shouldn't be held accountable. The experts who did psychological evaluation on Michael Dennis testified that they felt he had become completely unglued over the loss of his son.

This is an example of an anger that had become so intense, an ascensive grief, so intense that I think it sort of wedged there in his mind, that this is, that his scenario of what Doryne was doing or not doing is what caused Paul's death, and there was a, there was a part of that was intentional. I understand his belief that she murdered his child and therefore we had an obligation to make that right. And that's hard.

I think that's deeply how he feels. Michael's attorney also claims that Michael had no idea Doreen was pregnant. He was so filled with rage when that door opened. I don't think he remembers the actual event as it happens. I think he was just so blinded by his anger. William Michael Dennis had initially pleaded not guilty to the murder of Doreen Herbert and her unborn child.

During the course of the trial, he changed his plea and said he did commit the murders by reason of insanity, although a psychiatrist never categorized him as being insane. On August 16, 1988, William Michael Dennis pleads guilty to first and second degree murder in the death of Dorine Herbert and her unborn child. He is sentenced to death. He never really expressed remorse.

He never really said, I'm sorry for killing her. I'm happy with the verdict. He took my mom, he took my brother, tried to tear the family apart, but it didn't work. While justice has been served for Doreen and her unborn child, what happened that Halloween night in 1984 continues to haunt this San Jose neighborhood. Every Halloween I think about it,

every time I see a printed woman I think about it, it's just horrendous. You know, it's something that really shook San Jose. There was a time after the matter, it was on the path to drinking myself, or killing myself subconsciously. It didn't want to be there anymore, but I had to be there for Deanna.

My dad dealt with it a little bit more harder than I did. He's had a few rough patches here and there. It wasn't an easy childhood. I was in and out of school a lot because I think I had to do a lot with William, Michael, Dennis. I think because he wanted to kind of keep me sheltered, kind of hidden just in case. He's always been there for me no matter what.

It happened. I got accepted. I went, we got him to move on. The anger, the hate, the revenge is pretty much subsided. But yes, I forgive him for my sake. I'll never forget what he did, but I forgave him for what he did, because I don't want to hold that anger for the rest of my life. My mom would want me to move on with my life. My mom would want me to move on with my life.

My mom would want me to be happy. More than 30 years after his sentencing, William Michael Dennis still sits on death row. He is currently housed at San Quentin State Prison. For more information on snapped, go to oxygen.com.